Arabia: the new Mecca for Chinese medical tourists?
- Forget Thailand, there’s a new destination on the map for China’s big-spending, travelling patients: the Middle East
AFTER AN UNSUCCESSFUL treatment for chordoma, a rare type of bone cancer, 57-year-old grandmother Li decided to look beyond the borders of her home in China. In January 2016, Li (not her real name) used an intermediary to arrange eight weeks of proton therapy at Hyogo Ion Beam Medical Centre outside Osaka, Japan.
Li is one of a growing number of Chinese patients heading abroad for life-saving and complex procedures because of the unavailability of certain treatments and an overburdened medical system at home.
“We have already seen a steady influx of patients who previously went to the European Union for treatment,” said Shujahat Shah, an international health consultant at Sidra Medicine, a teaching hospital developed by government-funded Qatar Foundation which partners with New York-based Weill Cornell Medical College and other institutions for research. “The next step is partnerships with Chinese medical institutions and health care providers.”
The Gulf region was itself formerly a major source of outbound global medical travel. But in recent years, the UAE and Qatar governments have been transforming their health care systems to not only serve domestic patients, but attract those from overseas as well.